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October 21, 2014

This Book Should Come with a Free Promotional Corkscrew!

“I drink between one and one-and-a-half-bottles of wine a day,” says Gerry Facciani, who is both a friend and now an author – of the book above.

Gerry’s self-published book, The Drinkers Guide To Healthy Living, makes the case that one can drink as much wine as you like as part of a healthy lifestyle.

Citing the cardio-protective ability of wine, and resurfacing many of the things we’ve read about resveratrol, anthocyanins, flavinoids and antioxidants in the press... and stringing together hypotheses and test data, Gerry makes a case about the positive, physiological aspects of wine early in the book.

In many respects, the earliest chapters of Gerry’s book aren’t so much a persuasive thesis about the benefits of moderate drinking; they are more like a collection of clippings from numerous, informed sources, which support a common hypothesis. The Gerry Facciani Clipping Service has plumbed the depths of newspapers, medical research libraries, and scientific studies.

I started out highlighting all the salient arguments why wine is good for me with a yellow marker... and by page 37 decided that so many pages were solid yellow... that it was far easier to dip the book in a pail of yellow watercolor paint and then use white-out to un-highlight the very few sentences which I DIDN’T want highlighted!

Resistance is futile!

There are so many references in the book about the health- and performance-boosting properties of wine that it sounds like wine may just be the magic Elixir of Life. (Good thing that I have a cellarful of the elixir...)

Results of some of the cited clinical tests are hard to believe: for example, one clipping’s insistence that even the common cold can be warded off by drinking sufficient quantities of wine:

According to a 2002 Spanish study, published in the American Journal of Epidemiology, “when individuals consumed 14 or more glasses of wine per week, the relative risk of developing the common cold was reduced by 40 percent, compared to teetotalers, with red wine providing superior protection against the common cold.”

What’s not explained here, of course, is whether the wine drinkers in this study also partook in extraneous activities, when they weren’t drinking, which possibly strengthened their resistance from catching a cold (jogging, running, etc.).

This is either Gerry Facciani, or this is Jerry Facciani. It depends on which page of the book you reference.

Specialists and friends who wrote an endorsement for the author in this book, spelled Gerry’s name both with a G (Gerry) and with a J (Jerry). Sometimes using both spellings in the same paragraph!

Even Robert Parker, the esteemed wine critic, who is one of Jerry’s closest friends, spells his name two different ways in the foreward of the book.

In fact, Gerry’s name is so blatantly misspelled throughout the book, that I’m beginning to think that, to be considered a good friend it is essential to misspell his first name. So I’m raising a glass to you tonight, Sherry Facciani!

One other copy editor’s question: Where’s the apostrophe in the title?

If the book were aimed at one drinker, the title should be The Drinker’s Guide to Healthy Living. If Gerry meant to speak to ALL the drinkers out there, it should have been The Drinkers’ Guide to Healthy Living.

Speaking of healthy living, Gerry does a good job of summarizing present thoughts about diet, nutrition, and the need for exercise and stress management in the middle chapters. As well, he speaks about the health detriments of immoderate drinking.

Gerry in his wine cellar.

Given his passion for wine and the sheer quantity, which he enjoys daily, I asked Gerry about his favorite wine regions.

“For sure, my favorite regions include California, especially those producing Cabernet, Zinfandel, and Syrah. I also love the Rhone and Bordeaux wine regions of France. I’m also a big fan of Shiraz from Australia.”

Gerry has had a colorful career in – of all things – pension actuaries! He was the founder of an actuarial firm, which he sold in 1991 when it had become the largest individually owned firm of its type in the country.

In 2010, Gerry and his wife Karen moved to New Haven, CT, so that he could enroll as a full-time student in the Yale Divinity School. Three years later, Gerry graduated with a Masters Degree in Religion. (There must have been a run on altar wine in that three-year period, although there is no clipping in the book to support this hypothesis...)